Pig Processing

Our half-pig went to slaughter this week, and I collected it from the butcher's yesterday morning. We spent most of the rest of the day outside, getting things a bit tidier, including a mammoth weeding session along the long border, filling the compost bin in the process.

Today's been a very long and busy day, processing pork into various finished products for the coming twelve months.

We started by getting the various bags of meat sorted, into those that needed something doing, and those that were getting frozen as they were, as joints. That's about half a dozen. Another half dozen, and a big piece of belly, went back in the fridge, ready to go into a curing brine once that was made.

I then started working on the bag of trimmings, and the joints we wanted to turn into sausages, cutting them up into pieces small enough for the mincer. That generated about 12lb of bits, which went back into the freezer, to chill. The mincer works well on nearly frozen meat, but as it gets warm, the fats get messy, and the muscle doesn't get cleanly chopped by the blade. As a result, you get stuck every few minutes, with sticky, stringy, sinewy bits getting clogged on the rotor.

And that's no fun. So, we put the meat back in the freezer, and got on with other things until it was really cold.

The next was brawn, which involved getting all the odds and ends, tidied up (I'm not persuaded of the virtue of putting quartered head into it), and putting in a big pan. Covered with water, and with a few onions and muslin bag of thyme, bay, and peppercorns added, it was set on a simmer for a few hours. Liz then picked over the solids, extracting a dish full of meaty bits. The stock is cooked further, to reduce by half, and then sieved over the meat. This looks much tastier, actually, than last year's: there's less of it (pickier about the bits), but I think it'll be more valued.

While the brawn pot simmered, we got on with black pudding. We made a very tasty boudin noir de Poitou earlier this year, and a British fry-up black pud last year. On the basis of these, we modified the fry-up recipe, hoping to make something better seasoned, and a little more structural, but on the same lines. The new recipe, then:

• 750g of onions, finely chopped, and sweated in an ounce of butter
• 250g pearl barley, cooked (for about 45 minutes)
• 250g rolled (porridge) oats
• 50g salt

These get stirred together over a low heat, which seemed to help prevent the barley lumping up. We then added:

• 1l light white sauce (or Béchamel)
• 2tsp ground coriander
• 2tsp ground pepper
• 1tsp ground mace
• 1tbsp brandy
• 2l blood

Stirred thoroughly, we poured this into six 1lb loaf tins (and a 2lb tin), which had been lined (but not greased: there's enough fat in the mix). These went into a bain-marie in the oven for an hour at 170°C. That was enough: it's a lot less time than the batch this time last year took, and more like the Poitou blood cakes. I think the Béchamel helps them set, whereas cream doesn't. Sliced, packed into double portions, and frozen.

After this, I ground the sausage meat, and we added 12-15% chopped apples, 10% blended porridge oats, and 1% salt. I didn't add any liquid, this time, as the mix seemed moist enough. This then went back in the fridge, while we made the cure for the hams.

We really enjoyed the two Wiltshire cured hams we made last year as a trial, and decided to do all our hams that way this time. The ingredients are brought to the boil, then allowed to cool, before putting the hams into the chilled mix. In theory, you can pre-brine the hams, but that seemed superfluous (and a waste of salt!).

• 3l beer (the Harvest Mild we've been enjoying!)
• 50g saltpetre
• 750g black treacle
• 1400g salt
• 30g black peppercorns
• 35 juniper berries

They'll come out in three and a half days (Thursday morning).

I then mixed up a batch of 'Ray's Liver Pâté' (HFW's River Cottage Cookbook), scaled to the amount of liver we'd received (about 450g), which went into the oven (another bain-marie!) along with some baked potatoes.

The sausagemeat having chilled, we set to with the mincer, and turned out 96 sausages, running out of skin just too soon. The last of the meat made 12-sausages worth of patties, which will be useful for stuffing, and similar. Arguably, we didn't run out of skins too soon, really.

Last, and late, we settled down with our baked spuds (very tasty Druids), sausages, and black pudding. A very tasty reward at the end of a long day.